Protein reverses Alzheimer's brain damage - health - 08 February 2009 - New Scientist

Protein reverses Alzheimer's brain damage - health - 08 February 2009 - New Scientist: "Protein reverses Alzheimer's brain damage

* 18:00 08 February 2009 by Andy Coghlan
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Injections of a natural growth factor into the brains of mice, rats and monkeys offers hope of preventing or reversing the earliest impacts of Alzheimer's disease on memory. The benefits arose even in animals whose brains contained the hallmark plaques that clog up the brains of patients.

By delivering brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) directly into the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus, the parts of the brain where memories are formed then consolidated, the researchers successfully tackled damage exactly where Alzheimer's strikes first.

'We're administering BDNF directly to the degenerating neurons in memory systems of the cortex, and preventing their death,' says Mark Tuszynski of the University of California at San Diego. The substance, which naturally supports brain cells throughout life, also amplified the numbers of connections, or synapses, between neurons.

'Our most compelling evidence was the observation that brain cell death was prevented, and that connections between neurons rose in density by about 25%,' says Tuszynski. Improvements on this scale happened in all the animals, including"